Q: When did Boathouse on the Red open?
A: It's been a number of years now, and they seem to fly by. … My records indicate a 2015 opening, so this would be our sixth season. The first couple of seasons we operated out of Lincoln Park. … Boathouse on the Red is owned by Ground UP Adventures. … For anyone younger than 12 it’s free; otherwise, it’s $10 per person for 90 minutes. We’re open on Saturdays and Sundays. … We still sometimes hear it, someone who’s lived here their whole life will come up and say, ‘We didn’t know you were here.’
Q: What improvements have been made since you opened?
A: Several years ago, the city wanted to grade the shore and put in a sidewalk with a stairway and little loop to get down to where the docks were going to be. But then they ran out of money. So, the next year they put in another grant … to basically grade the shore, install the sidewalk and floating dock. If my recollection serves, this is the second summer, or it could be the third, that we've had that system. … Anyway, the reality was when we decided to do this – and I want to make sure I come back to Ground UP Adventures, which is the nonprofit organization that runs the Boathouse – we started at Lincoln Park because it has a paved boat ramp. The bummer was that our containers were up at the top of the parking lot and there’s a fairly steep hill, some 80 or 70 yards down to the water, and we were competing with people putting their motorboats in the water. … But the city wanted us to be more visible and closer to downtown, and to their credit they went out of their way to get a significant amount of money from the state to build the facility for us to go in. … At any rate, once we got into our downtown location, our rental numbers soared because we had much more visibility than at Lincoln Park. I would say in the last three or four summers, we're averaging about 1,000 paddlers a summer.
Q: What misconceptions still exist about the Red River?
A: I think there is a perception that because it is moving water, it's dangerous. Well, any water is dangerous, and you've got to respect it. That's why our first rule is everybody wears a life jacket. … There are some folks who perpetuate the idea that there's some sort of undertow in the river. It's kind of baffling when you think about it, because hydrologically speaking there is no such thing as an undertow. The thing that I believe people think about when they say undertow is the current that sometimes occurs in the ocean, where waves come and they crash on the beach and they pull people out to the ocean. They don't pull them under, they just pull them away from shore. When people try to fight that current, if they don't know how to deal with it, they can get in real trouble. That doesn't exist in rivers, there is no such thing. … The reality is out of some 4,000 or 4,500 rentals, we've had four or five boats that have flipped people out, and usually that's because the boat rocks a little or the current pushes and the people are inexperienced and they lean the wrong way and fall out. … Generally, we don't have anybody go anywhere near (the dams). We tell them to paddle upstream first, stay along the shore where it's quieter, the current is slower, and work your way upstream; and then when you get tired or when you have had enough paddling, turn around, go out in the current, and use the current to come back downstream.
Q: Do you have community events or partner with any local businesses?
A: We're a small group and most of us have full-time jobs, and so we're trying to hone our marketing skills. But we've tried to reach out to some organizations. … If you were a corporation that wanted to contribute to the community, maybe get some publicity for yourself in terms of contributing to the community, we were thinking about this: They buy out the boathouse on a weekend (for the community), and then, for anybody who comes out, it is free paddling for them.
Q: What are your plans for the rest of the season?
A: Labor Day is the end of the season for us. We’ll be open that Monday, but then we’ll close. I love the fall around here; it's one of the best seasons that we have and it's lovely to be out paddling when it's cool and there's not as much motorboat action. But the reality is, by then there's just not enough people to generate revenue to keep us open. We typically have a youth and family adventure race in September … but, unfortunately, we can't do that this year. We'll come back and do it next year, though. … We’ll reopen on Memorial Day.
The Link LonkAugust 31, 2020 at 06:00PM
https://www.grandforksherald.com/business/tourism/6637327-5-Questions-Boathouse-on-the-Red
5 Questions: Boathouse on the Red - Grand Forks Herald
https://news.google.com/search?q=Red&hl=en-US&gl=US&ceid=US:en
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